


Never Break the Chain

by ishie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was looking for a weapon, the whispers said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Break the Chain

**Author's Note:**

> FIC AMNESTY. Written long-ago for a prompt on the [Awesome Ladies Ficathon](http://hazyflights.livejournal.com/199061.html?thread=5261973#t5261973). I'd hoped to turn it into a Year That Never Was longfic with Martha/OFC and Martha/getting over the Doctor, but, well. This is as far as I ever got. Maybe Petronella will turn up in something else someday (I HOPE).

Black water sloshed in their wake as the boat bellied up to the abandoned dock. Martha steadied herself against the pilot's seat bolted to the floor and closed her eyes. Through the open door, she heard Petronella call to someone on shore; her Dutch sounded to Martha's ears just enough like English that she felt disoriented when the syllables didn't coalesce into words she knew. 

When it came at last, the response was in French, or something near enough to make sense. After a short exchange, Petronella stepped back into the cramped wheelhouse and slid the door shut behind her. Pale moonlight silvered her dark hair and washed the copper from her skin. 

She shrugged, as if in apology. "We must wait another hour before we can go ashore. There have been heavy patrols in the area." 

_Looking for you_ hung heavily in the air between them. 

"Really, I can go on alone," Martha offered. "It's not a big deal."

"Ah, but what a hostess I would be if I let you roam the streets of Par'bo alone." 

It would make her no different than the men and women she'd met in a dozen cities around the world, Martha thought. At this point, still so far from the end of her journey, she didn't much care but was grateful for the company all the same. There were so many long dark nights left between her and home. What was left of home, anyway. She'd seen the broadcasts, same as everyone. She could hear the music in her sleep as her mother sobbed and needles pierced her skin until she awoke in a panic. 

She had wanted to travel, once. Longed for it. Longed for things she couldn't name, places she had never seen, even in dreams. Not like this, though. She wasn't even sure she wanted to go back to the breathless headlong rush into the unknown that the Doctor had pulled her into. 

She was looking for a weapon, the whispers said. She walked the world to raise an army, to hide, to find a place to make her stand. She was searching for a way to stop.

The whispers weren't all wrong. What Martha had found, though, were all the reasons to keep going. With every mile on this long journey around the world, she felt a pressure building. Something tugging. _Home home home_ she thought, over and over. _Home home home._ It wasn't just London, though. It was rice-paper walls in Tokyo, and a drift of snow in Tien Shan. The stones in a path that wound around a lake near Budapest. A bowl of fish stew in Santiago. 

At every stop along the way she was surrounded from dawn to dawn. Unfamiliar faces, hands clasping hers. She told the story, heard it back in a thousand different voices, in accents she'd never hear again. Her every waking moment was crowded with words. Sharing even a moment of the same quiet air as another person was intoxicating. Here in the cozy confines of the wheelhouse, there were no expectant smiles, no frightened looks, no pauses between breaths to listen for alarms.

Petronella excused herself to complete whatever rituals were needed to see them safely ashore. The sounds of lapping water grew louder for a moment when the door slid open, then disappeared again. 

The windowpane grew cool against her shoulder as the temperature dropped outside. A storm was bearing down, Petronella had said, bringing wind and rain heavy enough to mask their progress inland. Rumor had the Toclafane speeding their way north, São Paulo and the coast a smoking ruin behind them. 

Martha settled in to wait. It wouldn't be much longer now.


End file.
